Chili oil is absolutely essential to Chinese home cooking. It can be added to a lot of dipping sauces and dishes. We use chili oil for cold plates (liang cai) such as cucumber salad and century egg salad. Additionally we use chili oil for delicious noodle soup base such as Dan Dan Noodles!!! Although you can buy pretty good already-made chili oil from stores like the famous LaoGanMa sauce, it is still not enough to create all the dishes and noodles you can make with this homemade chili oil.
There are two main parts to prepare for making chili oil: 1st the chili powder mix, 2nd the fragrant hot oil.
To prepare the chili powder mix, you can buy ground chili powder from Chinese grocery stores. And add roasted peanuts, roasted sesame and peppercorn.
For the hot oil, it takes a little bit time to make but it is definitely not complicated! I recommend using canola oil for the flavor and that’s what we use in China as well. You’ll need some fragrant fresh ingredients such as celery, ginger, garlic, onion etc. And then we will add a few kinds of spices frequently used in Chinese cooking, these are bay leaf, dried sand ginger, black cardamom, dried fennel and cinnamon. When ready to pour the oil, make sure that the oil isn’t smoking, ideal temperature would be about between 300-350F.
Chop fresh ingredients into smaller pieces for fry in oil.
Prepare the spices needed.
Fry fresh ingredients slowly for about 20-30 minutes. Take them out with a strainer after they start to turn yellow.
Then fry spices for another 10-15 minutes and take them out.
Pour the fragrant oil into dry ingredients with a spoon. Make sure the chili powder isn’t turning black. If so, make sure to cool the oil for a bit.
When adding hot oil into chili powder, it will start to boil and sizzle.
After adding oil, pour 1 tbsp of Chinese dark vinegar. The mixture will boil again and evaporate water, leaving all the good fragrances.
Make sure your container is heat resistant because the oil will be very hot! The size of the container should also be large enough to contain all the oil and still have 1-2” space for the chili oil to boil!
Watch the video on my YouTube Channel if you want to see how the chili oil is made!!!
Ingredients
Method
- Mix chili powder, roasted peanuts and roasted sesame, put in a container for the final product
- Heat canola oil in a pot, fry the fresh ingredients on low heat for 30-40 minutes, until slightly brown, take out fried fresh ingredients with a strainer
- Fry spices for 15-20 minutes, take them out with a strainer
- Use a large soup spoon to add oil to dry chili powder mix
- Add 1.5 tbsp Chinese vinegar to the chili oil (this will make the mixture boil again so make sure to use a large enough container!)
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